16 



Mr. Weber. I would not say that none of them did not, but cer- 

 tainly not a lot of us in the Department have extensive experience 

 in the nursery crops. That is why we have relied heavily on the in- 

 dustry in trying to fit these particular crops into the statutory au- 

 thority that we have. That has not necessarily been the easiest. 



But, no, we don't have a lot of extensive experience. We are cer- 

 tainly gaining a lot of experience. 



Mrs. THURMAN. But you do believe that you have consulted with 

 some experts? 



Mr. Weber. Yes. 



Mrs. Thurman. You do now? 



Mr. Weber. Yes, and we did when we developed the procedure 

 that is set up. We worked with the industry to try to fit the pieces 

 of the puzzle together as best we could. 



Mrs. Thurman. I would just strongly suggest, and I know it 

 sounds like you are doing that, but to me that is the paradigm of 

 all of this. If we were talking about wheat or corn or some other 

 grain industry, which seems to be prominent in this Congress of 

 knowing about those kinds of issues, we certainly would never have 

 come to the decisions without that input or without that kind of 

 knowledge. 



I think what we have here is a situation where we do have some 

 developing crops within this country that are very important to 

 both, I know in Hawaii and Florida's economy that certainly they 

 ought not to be put on the back burner. 



Mr. Lewis and I were in a meeting this morning on a NAFTA 

 issue. Quite honestly maybe Mrs. Mink feels the same way, but it 

 is the first time we believe that anybody noticed that agriculture 

 in Florida is really alive and well. 



Mr. Lewis. 



Mr. Lewis. I have two questions for Mr. Weber. Mr. Weber, in 

 your testimony you discussed containerized nursery crops. How 

 about nursery field crops? How are they covered? 



Mr. Weber. I will turn it over to Diane. 



Ms. Sharp. The only difference we have distinguished between it 

 is we have acres in that case and don't deal with containers. So we 

 have acres of trees or palms. So there are no differences in the way 

 we treat those two. 



Mr. Lewis. The other question is how heavily do you rely on rec- 

 ommendations from Dade County? They came through after the 

 hurricane with a number of recommendations. 



Mr. Weber. We have relied very heavily on Dade County simply 

 because again, as has been pointed out, we don't have a lot of ex- 

 pertise in the crops that are growing in that area. 



So we have relied very heavily on Dade County and the people 

 down there to give us recommendations. I think for the most part 

 recommendations that have been made, we have generally gone 

 along with them. The one major issue is the dead tree issue. That 

 issue decision was made in the Secretary's office and we are all 

 aware of what that decision was. 



Otherwise, for the most part, the recommendations that have 

 been made by Dade County have generally been accepted. 



Mr. Lewis. I would like to get back to Ms. Sharp if I could. You 

 said the differences were between containerized and acres. Let's 



